p. 20 | Current Mention

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Michigan · Apr 22, 1902

Current Mention

— Queen Wilhelmina, of Holland, is reported to have been critically ill, but is apparently progressing toward recovery at this time.

— A bread trust has been formed in New England, with a capital of $5,000,-000. Large bakeries will be operated by the trust in Boston and other leading New England cities.

— The committee of the Presbyterian church intrusted with the task of revising the Presbyterian creed, has finished its work, says a dispatch from Washington, D. C., where the committee has been in session.

— President Roosevelt has decided not to retire General Miles from the command of the army at the present time, being advised that such a step would produce political results unfavorable to the administration at the next congressional election.

— A dispatch from Tokio states that “the Japan Evangelical Alliance has passed, by an overwhelming majority, a resolution affirming its belief in the divinity of Christ, and declaring the Bible to be the only perfect rule of Christian faith and practice.”

— There is severe fighting in China between the government troops and the insurgents, according to dispatches from Hongkong. One of the latest of these states that an imperial force of 2,000 men sent against the rebels in southern China, was ambushed by the latter in a narrow defile, and annihilated.

— The “Irish question” in the British Parliament is causing an unusual disturbance on account of the coercion act, the enforcement of which has recently been attempted in certain sections of Ireland, where there have been disturbances. The Irish leaders in Parliament declared that coercion would be resisted “blow for blow.”

— The Chinese exclusion law was passed by the Senate, April 16, only one vote being given against it. The law will extend, however, only to Dec. 7, 1904, the date at which the existing treaty with China expires. The bill as passed by the House was held to be a violation of this treaty, inasmuch as it mentioned no time limit, and it was amended by the Senate in this respect.

— The senate committee on the Philippines has been taking testimony from returned soldiers who have served in the Philippine campaign, relative to alleged cruelties practiced on the natives by order of American officers. In order to extort information from them, says one witness, the victim was subjected to what was called the “water cure,” which consisted in directing a stream of water into his mouth, which was forced open for the purpose, he being held flat on his back with his hands tied behind him. It is expected that the officials implicated in this charge will be tried by court-martial. The fact should not be forgotten, however, that such practices are a natural feature of a system of foreign conquest, where the officer is far removed from the home government to which he is responsible, and constitutional safeguards of personal rights are not in force. History speaks very plainly on this point.

— The reports of a settlement between the British and the Boers in South Africa were premature. Negotiations are, however, still in progress.

— Miss Ellen Stone, the missionary kidnapped in Bulgaria, is to give a series of lectures in this country, beginning in New York City, April 28.

— A negro woman named Mary Elston is reported to have died recently in Talladega County, Ala., at the age of one hundred and thirty-one years.

— A New York syndicate is negotiating with Santos-Dumont, the aeronaut, with a view of securing exhibitions of his flying machine in New York City.

— The Russian minister of the interior was assassinated April 15 by a student of the university at Kieff, who had been sentenced to compulsory military service for participation in the riots of 1901.

— The riots in Belgium, growing out of the socialist demand for universal suffrage, have brought the government to a grave crisis. Several hundred thousand workmen who are adherents of, or sympathizers with, the socialist party, are on a strike, and further violence is feared as the outcome.

— William H. Chadwick, a prominent member of the Chicago Board of Trade, declares his belief that “unless Congress takes steps to curb the great railway combinations, anarchy will result.” He made this statement before the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce. He alleges that these railway combines, besides making unjust discrimination in freight rates, have encroached in fields of business in which, as public carriers, they have no right to operate.

— Russia has agreed to evacuate the Chinese province of Manchuria by gradual stages, but insists on controlling the line of the transasian railway, by which, at the present time, she is massing troops on the Chinese frontier. Hence not much faith is put in the sincerity of Russia’s professed intention of leaving China, and the belief is expressed that nothing short of collective action by the United States, Great Britain, and Germany will block the final extension of Russian dominion to the Pacific. Meanwhile Russian encroachments in northern Europe are viewed with serious apprehension in Norway and Sweden.

— The progress of Protestant missions in countries dominated by the Roman Catholic and Greek Catholic churches, is indicated by the alarm and hostility voiced by clerical organs regarding such missions in those lands. The Vaterland, a Catholic organ in Vienna, calls attention to the fact that large numbers of American, German, and English missionaries are now to be found in Macedonia and old Servia. It says that Protestant missions are “more dangerous” than other unorthodox missions, and affirms as the reason that Protestant missionaries are devoting their attention to reforming the hospitals and medical service and educating the poor, all of which matters are notoriously neglected by the civil authorities. Many parents, says the Vaterland, are tempted by the good order, cleanliness, and wholesome food at the Protestant schools to send their children there, who thus receive a training in the Protestant religion.

The gospel of clean and healthful living is everywhere a factor in the spread of the gospel message in these last days.

— A St. Louis grand jury has been conducting an investigation of charges of corruption in the municipal affairs of that city, and brings in a report which affirms that conditions there “are almost too appalling for belief.” The investigation covers a period of about ten years, and from evidence gathered from members and ex-members of the municipal assembly, many of whom were called before the jury, it appears that the municipal lawmaking body of that city differs but little, if any, from an organized gang for plunder. Of those called before the jury who were or had been members of the municipal assembly, the jury affirms that a number were “utterly illiterate and lacking in ordinary intelligence.” “In some no trace of mentality or morality could be found.” “From the evidence before us,” says the jury, “it appears that an official of the city government boasted of the fact that he had made $25,000 a year out of his official position, which paid a legitimate salary of but $300 a year.” Another official “agreed with one interest to do an official act for $75,000, and afterward from the opposing interests accepted the sum of $100,000 for doing the very opposite of that which he had agreed to do for $75,000.” These are but samples of the statements contained in the jury’s report. Truly this is a time when “truth is fallen in the streets, and equity cannot enter.” Such prevailing corruption is a sign of “the days of the coming of the Son of man.”